Are you asking, or hoping someone will notice?

The other day at the train station I saw a young lady in a queue to buy a ticket at the machine. She was the 4th in line and kept huffing, tutting, sighing, and looking at the clock, then looking at her watch and then looking at the platform.

How many "yes" answers are we ignoring?

Now, from writing that down we can probably assume that she was running late and needed a ticket quickly.

But the people in front of her couldn’t see all of this. They could probably hear her tuts and sighs but in the noise of a busy train station where a lot of people are rushing and racing, it didn’t really stand out.

So, there’s a good chance they never even gave her a second thought but I’m willing to bet she left that queue fuming about how unreasonable people were for:

Not noticing her

Not letting her go in front to buy a ticket first

The more she huffed and puffed, the more the 3 people in front were being demonised in her head as being unhelpful and horrible to her, yet it would probably have been diffused had she asked the person in front:

“Hey, I’m in a real hurry, what’s the chance I could hop in front and get my ticket first? Only if it wouldn’t make you late of course.”

What’s the worst that could have happened?

They say no

They say no and they’re rude

But she’s already leaving the queue thinking they’re rude anyway, and there’s the slight chance that they understand, empathaise and say yes.

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About Amy Harrison

I am a copywriter, content-trainer, speaker and filmmaker teaching businesses how to avoid drab business content and write copy customers love to read. You can also find me hanging out and sharing content over on Google+.